Who doesn’t love pigtails? This was inspired by my little girls who have been rocking long ringlet pigtails all month. Low in the back and oh so cute. In this painting I used a lot of the following techniques: wet into wet washes and gradient washes. This helps to build the values (light to dark and contrast) in the initial work so that the colors are more cohesive. An example of building values on completely dry washes is the way the orange stripes were painted.

I like to see the colors blend more naturally with soft transitions instead of harsh lines when you layer color on top of color. It’s a personal preference but this is how you get closer to identifying your style. It’s all about the things you like, so you repeat them. In addition to the things you don’t like so you back off of them a bit.

I go into more depth to show you how to get more familiar with colors, color mixing, different types of watercolor washes and how to paint two mermaid projects in my online painting workshop, Watercolor Color Mixing for Beginners. Click here to start painting today. :)

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